Senator John McCain’s ‘modest’ multi-million spread was featured in “Architectural Digest” back in 2005.
I have been looking at houses with my wife for over a decade. We have looked at some of the most expensive houses in the U.S. and some of the more affordable houses. McCain’s house would’ve made me want to buy different house. Maybe “Architectural Digest” made the McCain’s decorate their house with crap? There is no space to do anything inside the house. You need to live outside in order to move around.
Remember in 2004 when Republicans painted John Kerry as out of touch. Kerry had four houses and he wind-surfed, so there was no way for him to know what the average American could be feeling.
“He is someone who purports to campaign as a man of the people, but who resides in a whole series of wealthy million dollar chateaus and mansions,” said Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt in the summer of 2004. “It’s just one more contradiction and example of him being out of the mainstream with America.”
Well, at least Kerry knew how many houses he owned. McCain was asked yesterday how many houses he owned and he couldn’t answer the question. “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain said to Politico.com.
John and Cindy McCain own a plethora of houses spread throughout the United States, including: two beachfront condos in Coronado, California, condo in La Jolla, California, a two-unit condominium complex in Phoenix, Arizona, three ranch houses located outside of Sedona, Arizona, a high-rise condo in Arlington, Virginia, a rental loft, and, according to GQ, a loft they bought for their daughter, Meghan.
Audio of McCain’s non-answer is below. When you listen to the McCain’s answer, it seems to me that it wasn’t that he didn’t know the answer, rather, it was almost like he didn’t want to answer the question. Maybe he didn’t know how to spin the question into a simple paradigm in which he was still a humble American.
Yesterday, an emotional woman stood up in Senator John McCain’s Town Hall in Las Cruses, New Mexico. She had a long rambling statement that ended with the suggestion that we will have to reinstate the draft if we are going to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell. McCain thanked the woman for her answer and then said that he didn’t disagree with anything that the woman said.
I don’t know if McCain heard all of the question or perhaps he zoned out. A draft? I think that a draft is necessary if are going to continue our occupation of Iraq and possibly invade or fight another county. We need more soldiers. On the other hand, this could be somewhat disastrous to McCain. A draft? I suspect that the McCain will have a statement out early in the morning re-stating what the Senator “meant” to say.
My answer is that Senator Barack Obama needs to point out what Senator John McCain has said. Obama needs to remind the voters that McCain has been on Rumsfeld’s side when it was a slam-dunk but then jumped on the anti-Rumsfeld bandwagon when things got tough. McCain pushed for war with Iraq and was one of the first to hint that Iraq was behind the anthrax scare. Obama doesn’t need to stoop to questioning McCain’s patriotism, he just needs to point out the huge swings in McCain’s positions. Fortunately for Obama, the press loves McCain. There is plenty of video tape of McCain since he has never been camera shy.
I’m not putting much stock in national polls. Instead, I’m trying to keep my eyes on statewide polls. For what this is worth, Senator John McCain seems to have cut into Senator Barack Obama’s lead. Let’s see what the polls show when the race really starts in two weeks.
By the way, many commentators are trying to make a big deal out of Obama’s performance over the weekend. As you recall, Obama and McCain were invited to the mega-church, Saddleback. Obama stood in front of a conservative audience. The audience was polite but clearly sided with McCain. As expected, McCain gave answers that were cut and dry while Obama gave answers that were more nuanced. There were no unexpected questions. Obama’s performance was a little wooden. McCain’s performance was… John McCain. I suspect that Obama will perform better down the stretch.
The following excerpt describing how Paul Revere saw life at age 50 is from “Paul Revere And The World He Lived In” by Esther Forbes.
“Very few people ever live their middle years in the same world they grow up in as children. None whose lives have been broken in two by a great war ever do, and none of Paul Revere’s generation did. They could fall to rioting, as they did in the western part of (Massachusetts.) They could slip into embittered old age as did Samuel Adams. Or they could take things as they found them and go ahead. Paul Revere did the last.”
Regardless of if you’ve been in a war or not, this seemed to me a useful passage for people of all ages.
Tags: Books, General by Texas Liberal Comments Off
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
